Vintage

Vintage (pronounced vin-tij)

(1) The wine from a particular harvest or crop (usually a season).

(2) Of wine, the product of a season of outstanding quality (labeled by calendar year)

(3) The annual produce of the grape harvest, especially with reference to the wine obtained (technically also recorded as the “yield of grapes during one season”).

(4) The time of gathering grapes, or of winemaking.

(5) The act or process of producing wine; winemaking.

(6) The class of a dated object with reference to era of production or use.

(7) A wine of a specified vintage:

(8) Attributively, a subset of something, representing often the most memorable or highest quality items produced (although it can apply to all associated with the designated era) such as vintage cars, vintage dresses et al.  Sometimes, what constitutes a “vintage” item (as opposed to a “veteran”, “antique” et al) is defined by various institutions (vintage watches for example said to be those dated between 1870 and 1980).

(9) Attributively, something old-fashioned or obsolete.

(10) Attributively, something the being the best of its kind.

1400-1450: From the Middle English vendage & vyndage, from the Anglo-Norman vendenge, from vinter, from the Old French vendage & vendenge (vine-harvest, yield from a vineyard (and cognate with the French vendange)), from the Latin vindēmia (a harvest of grapes, vintage), the construct being vīn(um) (grape; wine) + dēmō (take off or away, remove), the construct being de (of; from, away from) + (e)mō (acquire, obtain).  A number of European languages including Spanish, Polish and (surprisingly) France adopted “vintage from English”.  Vintage is a noun, verb & adjective, vintager is a noun, vintagey is (a non-standard) adjective and vintaged & vintaging are verbs; the noun plural is vintages.

Warrnambool Heritage "The Aged Vintage" cheese.  Very good.

The meaning shifted to “age or year of a particular wine” after 1745 with the general adjectival sense of “being of an earlier time” emerging in the early 1880s.  In the business of winemaking, the notion of “vintages” came in the twentieth century to become elastic, the term not of necessity misleading, just one which needed to be understood.  Originally, a vintage was one wine, produced with grapes grown and harvested in the one season and that system is still used but the word has long been used also as a label to denote “something of a superior quality”.  The taste of wine being a subjective thing however and something the industry (often in the small print or with a “NV” added) markets as “non-vintage” may by many buyers be preferred to a “vintage” because the “un-vintaged” drop might be a blend of wine from several years; something routinely done to ensure a particular product tastes much the same from year to year.  Even then, while the regulatory environments in many jurisdictions do specify that to qualify as a “vintage”, the fluid in the bottle must contain a minimum volume from the year on the label but the “foreign” content can be as high as a quarter and according to EU regulators, in some places special exemptions have been granted permitting a 50/50 split.  The use also proved attractive to others and there are many “vintage” cheeses and other foodstuffs, the word in this context meaning little more than being sold at a higher price.

Brass era: 1915 Stutz Bearcat Model F.  Although untrue, it was for years part of Stutz folklore than anyone who died in one merited an obituary in the New York Times.

“Vintage” has been used of cars since 1928 but in the post-war years when the idea of cars as collectables coalesced, in various places categories were created and while somewhat arbitrary, the cut-off points between one era and another tended to reflect the existence of something significant which (at least for the majority of the vehicles involved) made them in some way identifiably different from what came before.  The terms vary: The most evocative is the “brass era” used in the US and it covers essentially anything produced between the beginning of organized production in the mid 1890s and 1915, the name chosen because of the extensive use of brass for fittings such as headlamp surrounds radiators and levers, the polished metal lending the distinctiveness.  The choice of 1915 as the end of the brass era reflected the decline in the use of the material as mass production made the use of other materials more attractive but the main factor was that was the year Ford ceased use for the Model T, the car which had for years dominated the market.  In the UK (and therefore throughout most of the old British Empire), cars produced prior to 1919 were called “veteran” although there was for a time a fashion to speak of them as “Edwardian, a reference to the reign of Edward VII (1841–1910; King of the UK & Emperor of India 1901-1910), the imprecision in the dates accounted for by “Edwardian” being used as a descriptor of the fashion, architecture etc of the era rather than the reign proper.  “Vintage” cars are those made between 1919-1930 (or 1916-1930 in US use) and as an epoch that follows what was at the time called “post-war” (between the end of the World War (1914-1918) and the onset of the Great Depression.  Conveniently, it conforms (more or less also to the advances in engineering and style which made the machines of the 1920s distinct from those of the next decade.

Post-war classic: 1948 Cisitalia 202 CMM by Vignale.

So, what in political science are the “inter-war years” are divided by the collector car community into “vintage” and “pre-war”, the later epoch being 1930-1942 (US passenger car production ending early in 1942).  Most of what was produced between 1945-1948 was a continuation of what was abandoned with the onset of hostilities but nothing produced after 1945 is grouped with the “pre-war” cohort and the era is generally called “post-war classics” and depending on who is writing the classification, that period ends somewhere around 1960-1962, motoring’s beginning of “the modern” although that’s obviously inexact, some strikingly modern stuff coming from as early as the 1940s and some true relics still on sale as late as 1968.  These definitions don’t apply to stuff made outside the West and in places like the Warsaw Pact nations, the relics would endure until the 1990s; nor do they include retro devices like the Morgan or products of pure-functionalism like Jeeps and Land Rovers.  In the modern age, the labeling has changed and the tendency now is to use self-explanatory terms like “1970”s, “muscle car era” etc.

Lindsay Lohan in a vintage Herve Leger bandage dress, New York, May 2007 (left) and in a vintage-style dress, New York, February 2017.    

In fashion, “vintage” can mean a piece from decades ago or just a few seasons earlier.  Vintage items can sometimes be genuine museum pieces or simply be “old” enough to have gained some sort of respectability.  To be “vintage”, something needs to be the product of an acknowledged designer or manufacturer; items which have gained their notoriety for some other reason (who it’s associated with or the circumstances in which it was worn) can be newsworthy but they’re not “vintage”.  The word is used also of style, a “vintage look” an indicating that an outfit is something which either recalls something associated with an older style or uses known motifs to achieve the effect.  Depending on the implementation, the latter can also be treated as a “retro” whereas a “vintage look” is something where the relationship is more vague.

There is vintage and there is retro: Lindsay Lohan in an art deco mini-dress, said to be a vintage original, paired with a pair of retro Prada stilettos in burgundy.

Velvet

Velvet (pronounced vel-vit)

(1) A fabric fashioned from silk with a thick, soft pile formed of loops of the warp thread either cut at the outer end or left uncut.

(2) In modern use, a fabric emulating in texture and appearance the silk original and made from nylon, acetate, rayon etc, sometimes having a cotton backing.

(3) Something likened to the fabric velvet, an allusion to appearance, softness or texture,

(4) The soft, deciduous covering of a growing antler.

(5) In informal use (often as “in velvet” or “in the velvet”), a very pleasant, luxurious, desirable situation.

(6) In slang, money gained through gambling; winnings (mostly US, now less common).

(7) In financial trading, clear gain or profit, especially when more than anticipated; a windfall profit.

(8) In mixology, as “Black Velvet”, a cocktail of champagne & stout (also made with dark, heavy beers).

(9) A female chinchilla; a sow.

(10) An item of clothing made from velvet (in modern use also of similar synthetics).

(11) In drug slang, the drug dextromethorphan.

(12) To cover something with velvet; to cover something with something of a covering of a similar texture.

(13) In cooking, to coat raw meat in starch, then in oil, preparatory to frying.

(14) To remove the velvet from a deer's antlers.

1275–1325: From the Middle English velvet, velwet, veluet, welwet, velvette, felwet veluet & veluwet, from the Old Occitan veluet, from the Old French veluotte, from the Medieval Latin villutittus or villūtus (literally shaggy cloth), from the classical Latin villus (nap of cloth, shaggy hair, tuft of hair), from velu (hairy) and cognate with French velours.  The Latin villus is though probably a dialectal variant of vellus (fleece), from the primitive Indo-European wel-no-, a suffixed form of uelh- (to strike).  Velvet is a noun, verb & adjective, velvetlike & velvety are adjectives, velveting & velveted are verbs & adjective; the noun plural is velvets.

The noun velveteen was coined in 1776 to describe one of first the imitation (made with cotton rather than silk) velvets commercially to be marketed at scale; the suffix –een was a special use of the diminutive suffix (borrowed from the Irish –in (used also –ine) which was used to form the diminutives of nouns in Hiberno-English).  In commercial use, it referred to products which were imitations of something rather than smaller.  The adjective velvety emerged in the early eighteenth century, later augmented by velvetiness.  In idiomatic use, the “velvet glove” implies someone or something is being treated with gentleness or caution.  When used as “iron fist in a velvet glove”, it suggests strength or determination (and the implication of threat) behind a gentle appearance or demeanor.  “Velvet” in general is often applied wherever the need exists to covey the idea of “to soften; to mitigate” and is the word used when a cat retracts its claws.  The adjective “velvety” can be used of anything smooth and the choice between it and forms like “buttery”, “silky”, “creamy” et al is just a matter of the image one wishes to summon.  The particular instance “Velvet Revolution” (Sametová revoluce in Czech) refers to the peaceful transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from in late 1989 in the wake of the fall of Berlin Wall.  Despite being partially in the Balkans, the transition from communism to democracy was achieved almost wholly without outbreaks of violence (in the Balkans it rare for much of note to happen without violence).

Ten years after: Lindsay Lohan in black velvet, London, January 2013 (left) and in pink velour tracksuit, Dubai, January 2023 (right).

The fabrics velvet and velour can look similar but they differ in composition.  Velvet historically was made with silk thread and was characterized by a dense pile, created by the rendering of evenly distributed loops on the surface.  There are now velvets made from cotton, polyester or other blends and its construction lends it a smooth, plush texture appearance, something often finished with a sheen or luster.  A popular modern variation is “crushed velvet”, achieved by twisting the fabric while wet which produces a crumpled and crushed look although the effect can be realized also by pressing the pile of fabric in a different direction.  It’s unusual in that object with most fabric is to avoid a “crumpled” look but crushed velvet is admired because of the way it shimmers as the light plays upon the variations in the texture.  The crushing process doesn’t alter the silky feel because of the dense pile and the fineness of the fibers.  Velour typically is made from knit fabrics such as cotton or polyester and is best known for its stretchiness which makes its suitable for many purposes including sportswear and upholstery.  Except in some specialized types, the pile is less dense than velvet (a consequence of the knitted construction) and while it can be made with a slight shine, usually the appearance tends to be matte.  Velour is used for casual clothing, tracksuits & sweatshirts and it’s hard-wearing properties mean it’s often used for upholstery and before the techniques emerged to permit vinyl to be close to indistinguishable from leather, it was often used by car manufacturers as a more luxurious to vinyl.  The noun velour (historically also as velure & velours) dates from 1706 and was from the French velours (velvet), from the Old French velor, an alteration of velos (velvet) from the same Latin sources as “velvet”.

US and European visions of luxury: 1974 Cadillac Fleetwood Talisman in velour (top left), 1977 Chrysler New Yorker Brougham in leather (top right), 1978 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 in velour (bottom left) & 1979 Mercedes-Benz 450 SEL 6.9 in leather (bottom right).  Whether in velour or leather, the European approach in the era was more restrained. 

In car interiors, the golden age of velour began in the US in the early 1970s and lasted almost two decades, the increasingly plush interiors characterized by tufting and lurid colors.  Chrysler in the era made a selling point of their “rich, Corinthian leather” but the extravagant velour interiors were both more distinctive and emblematic of the era, the material stretching sometimes from floor to roof (the cars were often labeled “Broughams”).  The dismissive phrase used of the 1970s was “the decade style forgot” and that applied to clothes and interior decorating but the interior designs Detroit used on their cars shouldn’t be forgotten and while the polyester-rich cabins (at the time too, on the more expensive models one’s feet literally could sink into the deep pile carpet) were never the fire-risk comedians claimed, many other criticisms were justified.  Cotton-based velour had for decades been used by the manufacturers but the advent of mass-produced, polyester velour came at a time when “authenticity” didn’t enjoy the lure of today and the space age lent the attractiveness of modernity to plastics and faux wood, faux leather and faux velvet were suddenly an acceptable way to “tart up” the otherwise ordinary.  At the top end of the market, although the real things were still sometimes used, even in that segment soft, pillowy, tufted velour was a popular choice.

1989 Cadillac Fleetwood Brougham D'Elegance in velour (left) and a "low-rider" in velour (right).  The Cadillac is trimmed in a color which in slang came to be known as "bordello red".  Because of changing tastes, manufacturers no longer build cars with interiors which resemble a caricature of a mid-priced brothel but the tradition has been maintained (and developed) by the "low-rider" community, a sub-culture with specific tastes. 

At the time, the interiors were thought by buyers to convey “money” and the designers took to velour because the nature of the material allowed so many techniques cheaply to be deployed.  Compared with achieving a similar look in leather, the cost was low, the material cost (both velour and the passing underneath or behind) close to marginal and the designers slapped on pleats, distinctive (and deliberately obvious) stitching and extra stuffing, the stuff covering seats, door panels, and headliners, augmented with details like tufting (recessed) buttons, grab-handles and chrome accent pieces (often anodized plastic).  By the 1980s, velour had descended to the lower-priced product lines and this was at a time when the upper end of the market increasingly was turning to cars from European manufacturers, notably Mercedes-Benz and BMW, both of which equipped almost all their flagships destined for the US market with leather and real wood although the cloth was more common in Europe.

The Velvet Underground with Nico (Christa Päffgen; 1938–1988) while part of Andy Warhol’s (1928-1987) multimedia road-show The Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966-1967 and known briefly as “The Erupting Plastic Inevitable” or The Exploding Plastic Invisible).  Unusually, the acronym EPI never caught on.

The (posthumously) influential US rock band The Velvet Underground gained their name from a book with that title, published in 1963, the year before their original formation although it wouldn’t be until 1965 the band settled on the name.  The book was by journalist Michael Leigh (1901-1963) and it detailed the variety of “aberrant sexual practices” in the country and is notable as one of the first non-academic texts to explore what was classified as paraphilia (the sexual attraction to inanimate objects, now usually called Objectum Sexuality (OS) or objectum romanticism (OR) (both often clipped to "objectum")).  Leigh took a journalistic approach to the topic which focused on what was done, by whom and the ways and means by which those with “aberrant sexual interests” achieved and maintained contact.  The author little disguised his distaste for much about what he wrote.  The rock band’s most notable output came in four albums (The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967), White Light/White Heat (1968), The Velvet Underground (1969) & Loaded (1970)) which enjoyed neither critical approval nor commercial success but by the late 1970s, in the wake of punk and the new wave, their work was acknowledged as seminal and their influence has been more enduring than many which were for most of the late twentieth century more highly regarded.

Pernoctate

Pernoctate (pronounced per-nok-tait)

(1) In Christianity, to pass the night in vigil or prayer, prior to a feast (archaic).

(2) To stay (somewhere) all night (now a secular, jocular form).

1610s: From the Latin pernoctat- (spent the night), from pernoctatus, past participle of the verb pernoctare, the construct being per- (through) + noct-, nox (night).  In Christianity, the use of pernoctation to describe “a religious watch kept during normal sleeping hours, during which prayers or other ceremonies are performed” is now rare even in ecclesiastical use and has been supplant by vigil.  Vigil was from the Middle English vigile (a devotional watching), from the Old French vigile, from the Latin vigilia (wakefulness, watch), from vigil (awake), from the primitive Indo-European weǵ- (to be strong, lively, awake).  The English wake was from the same root.  Vigil was related to vigour (vigor the US spelling) (and more distantly to vital), from the Middle English vigour, from the Old French vigour, from vigor, from the Latin vigor, from vigeo (thrive, flourish), again from the primitive Indo-European weǵ-.  Pernoctate, pernoctates, pernoctating & pernoctated are verbs, pernoctation is a noun and the noun plural is pernoctations.

Lindsay Lohan at dawn, resting in a Cadillac Escalade after pernoctating, Los Angeles, May 2007 (right).  The church having adopted vigil, pernoctate and related forms are now words used amusingly to refer to nights spent in decadent pursuits.  The church and the faithful now inhabit the day and the sinners the night.

Beginning apparently during the second century of the existence of the Christian Church, during the night before every feast, a vigil (Vigilia in the Latin; pannychis in the Greek), was kept.  On those evenings, the faithful would gather in the church or wherever it was the feast was to be celebrated and prepared themselves by prayers, readings from Holy Writ (now the Offices of Vespers and Matins); sometimes a sermon would be read (as on fast days in general, Mass was celebrated in the evening, before the Vespers of the following day).  Towards dawn, the people dispersed to the streets and houses near the church, to await the solemn services of the forenoon. This was a formalized structure but in places the intermission gave rise to grave abuses; people would assemble, play music and dance in the streets: clear improprieties.  In the way such things happen, the volume of feasts multiplied so the number of vigils was greatly reduced but the abuses could be stopped only by abolishing the vigils and where they remained, they were shifted to begin in the afternoon, a synod held at Rouen in 1231 prohibited all vigils except those before the patronal feast of a church.  The number of vigils in the Roman Catholic Calendar (besides Holy Saturday) is now seventeen: the eves of Christmas, the Epiphany, the Ascension, Pentecost, the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption, the eight feasts of the Apostles, St. John the Baptist, St. Laurence, and All Saints although some dioceses and religious orders have particular vigils.

Pope Benedict XVI (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) baptizes a Japanese faithful during the Easter Vigil ceremony, Saint Peter's Basilica, the Vatican, 15 April 2006.

In the Christian tradition, a vigil is now understood as a period of purposeful wakefulness devoted to prayer or ceremonies and although vigils may happen at any time, historically they came to be observed during darkness and became quite common before being restricted to special occasions, such as feasts, solemnities, or important liturgical events.  No longer conducted overnight, during a vigil, participants may engage in prayer, reflection, scripture reading, and hymn singing and the direction of a vigil should be thematic, the purpose to prepare spiritually for a significant religious event or to commemorate a particular occasion.  The best known in Christianity is the Easter Vigil, which takes place on the evening of Holy Saturday, commemorating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and is the most important liturgy of the entire liturgical year.  Typically it will include the blessing of the Easter fire, the lighting of the Paschal candle, scripture readings recounting salvation history and the celebration of the Eucharist.  The reason for the significance of the Easter vigil is that the Resurrection of Christ is the central event of Christianity.  If one accepts the Resurrection, then the internal logic of Christianity is perfect but if not, while the tenants may still appeal as a guide to morality, it’s just another set of competing arguments.  Rationalists who want both can adopt the view of the more radical of the nineteenth century theologians: “One need not believe, one needs only to accept”.

Cacography

Cacography (pronounced kuh-kog-ruh-fee)

(1) Bad handwriting; poor penmanship.

(2) Incorrect spelling.

1570–1580: The construct was caco- + -graphy and was presumably influenced by the Middle French cacographie.  The prefix caco- (used before a vowel as cac-) was a word-forming element meaning “bad, ill, poor” and was from the Latinized form of the Ancient Greek κακός (kakós) (bad) and while the origin is unknown, most etymologists conclude it was probably connected with primitive Indo-European root kakka- (to defecate), the implications of the connections obvious and often reflected in contemporary English (although there are some who suggest a pre-Greek origin).  The ancient Greek word was common in compounds; when added to words already bad, it made them worse; when added to words signifying something good, it often implied too little of it, thus applied as a measure of (1) quality: bad, worthless, useless, (2) appearance: ugly, hideous, (3) circumstances: injurious, wretched, unhappy & character: low, mean, vile, evil.  The Greek form may be compared with the Phrygian κακον (kakon) (harm) and the Albanian keq (bad).  The -graphy suffix was from the French -graphie, from the Latin -graphia, from the Ancient Greek -γραφία (-graphía), from γραφή (graphḗ) (writing, drawing, description).  It was used to create words describing (1) something written or otherwise represented in the specified manner, or about a specified subject & (2) a field of study.  The extinct alternative spelling was kakography.  Cacography & cacographer are nouns and cacographic & cacographical are adjectives; the noun plural is cacographies.

Cacographic: A fragment of the original draft of Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (1867-1894)).  Marx’s writing was notoriously bad and for his drafts to be acceptable for publishers, they needed first to be re-written by his wife (Jenny von Westphalen (1814–1881)).  Given the drafts of Das Kapital ran to thousands of pages, she had quite a task.

The original sense developed in the sixteenth century and was a reference to poor spelling or punctuation, especially unintuitive spellings considered as a feature of a whole language or dialect.  The antonym was orthography but it must be noted that in the sixteenth century, spelling in English was far from standardized and regional differences were frequent and typically, cacographic texts were those where there were instances of inconsistencies (such as the one word being spelled in more than one way) or the spelling was such that unlike some other variations, the construct was inexplicable.  In the seventeenth century, the meaning extended to bad or illegible handwriting, the antonym being calligraphy, a word which has now come to mean “an intricate or stylized form of script”.  Thus, what might once have been described as cacographical would now variously be condemned as illegible, indecipherable (or the less common undecipherable), indistinct, scrawled, unclear or unreadable.  Sometimes, those with elegant handwriting can use techniques to make their text appear functionally cacographic.  Baldur von Schirach (1907-1974; head of the Hitlerjugend (Hitler Youth) 1931-1940 & Gauleiter (district party leader) and Reichsstatthalter (Governor) of Vienna (1940-1945), when writing the material he had smuggled out of Spandau Prison where he was serving the 20 year sentence he was lucky to receive, wrote in English but in an old-style German script, his object being to make them hard for anyone else to read.

Calligraphic: Coming to attention first during one of her court appearances, there was genuine surprise Lindsay Lohan’s writing (left) was so neat.  It later transpired her style shared a characteristic with that of Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021): tending to write (right) on the diagonal.  Mr Trump prefers to write with a Sharpie (recommended also by Pippa Middleton (b 1983)) and a thick nib is one of the tricks used to lend elegance to one’s handwriting.    

Cacography is the antonym of both calligraphy and orthography which is something unusual in a language which even in the early days of Modern English rejoiced in coining new words to create something unique for every purpose so it may be a reflection of the manner in which, at the time, the content and appearance of a document were considered together; different aspects of the same thing.  The noun calligraphy (the art of beautiful writing, elegant penmanship) dates from the 1610s and was from the French calligraphie, from a Latinized form of the Ancient Greek καλλιγραφία (kalligraphía (literally “pretty writing”)), the construct being κάλλος (kállos) (beauty) + γράφω (gráphō) (to draw).  It was used to mean (1) the art or practice of writing letters and words in a decorative style; the letters and words so written, (2) any such style of decorative writing & (3) a document written in decorative style, the last meaning now the default; the advent of digital fonts and printing has meant the styles have become common although hand-written script is now rare.  Henry Watson Fowler (1858–1933) in A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) cautioned calligraphy should not be altered to caligraphy, noting Greek compounds were made wither with καλλι- (from κάλλος (beauty)) or κάλο- (from κάλος (beautiful)).  The choice thus was between “calligraphy” or “calography” and because the Greek compounds were in the form of καλλιγραφία etc, the former was obviously correct.  The noun orthography was from the mid fifteenth century ortographie & ortografie, (branch of knowledge concerned with correct or proper spelling), from the thirteenth century Old French ortografie, from the Latin orthographia, from the Ancient Greek orthographia (correct writing), the construct being orthos (correct (familiar in the suffix ortho-) + the root of graphein (to write).  The classical spelling was restored in English and French (orthographie) in the early sixteenth century while the meaning “branch of language study which treats of the nature and properties of letters” dates from the 1580s.  As an indication of how spelling used to be, in an early fifteenth century glossary, ortographia was defined as “ryght wrytynge” and that would have be just one of the ways “right writing” might have been written.

Slight

Slight (pronounced slahyt)

(1) Something small in amount, degree, etc.

(2) A small increase in something.

(3) Of little importance, influence, trivial.

(4) Slender or slim; not heavily built.

(5) Frail; flimsy; delicate; of little substance or strength.

(6) To treat as of little importance.

(7) A description of a form of deception or trickery, literal and metaphorical.

(8) To treat someone with indifference; ignore, especially pointedly or contemptuously; snub.

(9) To defame with a casual or off-hand comment; a pointed and contemptuous discourtesy; an affront.

1350-1400: From the Middle English slight (bad, of poor quality, unimportant, trivial, slender, slim, smooth, level), from the Old English sliht (smooth, level), derived from the Proto-Germanic slihtaz (smooth, plain, common).  Cognate with the Danish slet (bad, evil, poor, nasty, wrong), the Dutch slecht (bad), the Icelandic sléttur (even, smooth, level), the German schlecht (bad) & schlicht (plain, artless, natural), the Norwegian slett (even), the Low German slecht (bad) and the Swedish slät (smooth).  The early fourteen century sense of “flat, smooth” is thought to come from a Scandinavian source akin to the Old Norse slettr (smooth, sleek), derived from the Proto-Germanic slikhtaz (smooth).  It also mean “plain or common” as in the Old Saxon slicht, the Low German slicht and the Old English sliht (level) is documented as as eorðslihtes (level with the ground).  Related too are the Old Frisian sliucht (smooth, slight), the Middle Dutch sleht (even, plain) the Old High German sleht, the Gothic slaihts (smooth), all thought most likely ultimately derived from a collateral form of the primitive sleig (to smooth, glide, be muddy) from the root slei (slimy).

In the (sometimes) organic way of English, from the original meaning(s) “plain, smooth, common, level”, there emerged in the 1520s “small amount or weight” and, in the 1590s, the adjectival sense of “having little worth”.  The meaning "act of intentional neglect or ignoring out of displeasure or contempt" is from 1701, almost certainly from the seventeenth century phrase “to make a slight of”, first attested in 1608.  Interestingly, in German, schlecht likewise developed from "smooth, plain, simple" to "bad, mean, base," and as it did it was replaced in the original senses by schlicht, a back-formation from schlichten (to smooth, to plane), a derivative of schlecht in the old sense.  In English, the original meaning went extinct.  Slight, slightness & slighting are nouns, verbs & adjectives, slighten is a verb, slighted is an adjective & verb, slightful, slighty, slighter, slightest & slightish are adjectives and slightingly & slightly are adverbs; the noun plural is slights.

A slight Lindsay Lohan during her "thin phase", early in the third millennium.  Note the fine ribcage definition.

Slights: Boris on crooked Hillary Clinton and others

Few have managed so often to slight so many as former UK prime minister Boris Johnson (b 1964; UK prime-minister 2019-2022) and unusually, those best remembered tend to be where the victim was friend rather than foe.  It should be noted that when referring to Mr Johnson having friends, the word is used in a specific technical sense, vaguely similar to the form pioneered by Facebook.

Long before there was Crooked Hillary, there was Hillary Clinton (b 1947; US secretary of state 2009-2013) and she had been promised the Democratic Party nomination for the 2008 presidential election.  It had all been fixed up at head office "and the middle-class was quite prepared" but her 1990s style campaign fell apart.  Johnson had tried to help.  In November 2007, writing in his Daily Telegraph column, he endorsed Clinton as candidate, helpfully adding… “She's got dyed blonde hair and pouty lips, and a steely blue stare, like a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital."  “Clinton…” he continued, had done the job of First Lady like "…Lady Macbeth, stamping her heel, bawling out subordinates and frisbeeing ashtrays at her erring husband."  Actually, it was the husband (Bill Clinton (b 1946; US president 1993-2001)) he wanted back in the White House.  "For all who love America, it is time to think of supporting Hillary, not because we necessarily want her for herself but because we want Bill in the role of First Husband." he concluded.

Years later, in mid-2016, confident Donald Trump (b 1946; US president 2017-2021) would never become president, Johnson said Trump was "clearly out of his mind" and his "ill-informed comments are complete and utter nonsense...", accusing him of "stupefying ignorance".  He finished by saying "…the only reason I wouldn't go to some parts of New York is the real risk of meeting Donald Trump".

Another head-of-state slighted was Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b 1954; prime-minister or president of the Republic of Türkiye since 2003).  Upset about the lawsuit brought by Mr Erdogan against a German comedian who recited a poem the president found insulting, the conservative weekly The Spectator ran a competition to find who could write the most offensive poem about the president.  Johnson won, his entry an ode to Mr Erdogan enjoying intimacy with a goat.  The president met Mr Johnson in 2016 during his brief stint as foreign secretary; the two seemed to get on well.

Slights can be avoided with a little luck.

World War II (1939-1945) veteran George HW Bush (1924–2018; US President (George XLI 1989-1993)) would have remembered Winston Churchill's (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) wartime "V for victory" sign and that’s the meaning the gesture gained in the US.  Unfortunately he wasn’t aware of the significance of "the forks" in the antipodes: when given with the palm facing inwards, it’s the equivalent to the upraised middle finger in the US.  On a state visit to Australia in 1992, while his motorcade was percolating through Canberra, he made the sign to some locals lining the road.  What might have been thought a slight worked out well, the crowd lining the road cheering the gesture which must have been encouraging.  That same day, the president gave a speech advocating stronger efforts “to foster greater understanding” between the American and Australian cultures. The Lakeland Ledger, reporting his latest gaffe, wrote, “...wearing mittens when abroad would be a beginning”.

Demi, Hemi & Semi

Demi- (pronounced dem-ee or dem-ahy)

Of less than full size, status, or rank.

Circa 1350s: From the Middle English demi (half, half-sized, partial), from the twelfth century Anglo-Norman demi (half), from the Vulgar Latin dimedius, from the Classical Latin dīmidius, the construct being dis- (apart; in two) + medius (middle).  The French demi which English borrowed was a combining form which existed as noun, adjective, and adverb.  It appears in loanwords from French meaning “half” (demilune), “lesser” (demitasse), or sometimes used with a pejorative sense (demimonde) and, on that model, is also prefixed to words of English origin (eg demigod).

Hemi- (pronounced hem-ee)

A combining form meaning “half,” used in the formation of compound words (eg hemispherical, hemimorphic, hemicardia et al).

Pre 900: From the Middle English hemi from the Ancient Greek prefix ἡμι- (hēmi-) (half), from ἥμισυς (hḗmisus) (half).  It was cognate with the Classical Latin sēmi- and, as a word -forming element meaning "half", was a Middle English borrowing from the Latin hemi- which was taken directly from the Greek hēmi- (half) from the primitive Indo-European semi-, source also of the Sanskrit सामि (sāmí), the Old High German sami- (half) the Old English sam- and others, all soon denoting a partial or imperfect condition as well as the classically correct “half”.

Semi- (pronounced sem-ee)

(1) Half (strictly speaking) as in “semicircle”.

(2) In informal use, a proportion of something less than the whole.

(3) In English, a combining form or prefix (sometimes hyphenated) appended to words of any origin, usually with the senses of “partially,” “incompletely” or “somewhat” (eg semi-final, semi-trailer, semiautomatic, semi-articulated, semi-detached et al).

1400s: From the Middle English semi, from the Latin sēmi- (half).  It was connected with the Old English sōm- & sām- (half) (and related to the modern dialectical sam-), the Old High German sāmi-, the Sanskrit सामि (sāmí) and the Ancient Greek hemi-.  Ultimate root was the primitive Indo-European sēmi.

The word-forming prefixes semi-, hemi-, and demi- all began life meaning “half” but have evolved to mean other things too and exist also not just as prefixes but as stand-alone forms.  As a prefix, there appears to be 951 words with a “semi-” prefix, around 215 with a “hemi-” while a “demi” is appended only to 172, and, although it’s never been a rule, because of the origins, “demi-” is probably best paired with words of French origin, whereas “semi-” is a more natural fit with words with a Latin root.

Semi- may refer to something happening more than once (usually twice) within a certain time and is probably most familiar as “semi-final” to describe the matches of a competition which will determine the finalists.  In English it was used first to mean “half but became soon attached to concepts impossible to quantify (eg semi-abstract; semi-permanent) and thus came to mean also “virtually” or “somewhat.”

Hemi- is often employed in the hard-sciences.  It’s less commonly used than semi-, the association with the technical language of fields such as physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology and anatomy tending to mean it’s applied with more exactitude but even here, practices of use have produced anomalies.  In general use, it’s perhaps best known as a descriptor of the shape of the combustion chamber of certain internal combustion chambers to the extent of “Hemi” the noun being a Stellantis (the holding company of which Chrysler is now a part) trademark, even though many of the engines the company now market as such use a different shape.

Lindsay Lohan in underwired demi-cup bra, photoshoot by Terry Richardson (b 1965) for Love Magazine, 2012.  The "demi-cup look" can be achieved by choosing a bra with the correct band size and a smaller cup.  Someone who usually wears a full-cup 32D would use a 32C or even 32B to get the effect although, given the variation in cup shapes between manufacturers, some experimentation will likely be required and fitters caution this should be done in a physical store rather than shopping on-line. 

The demi-cup style is most associated with the “push-up” bra of which Playtex's Wonderbra is the best known.  As the name implies, a demi-cup bra is one where the fabric covers rather less than the mainstream “full cup” bra although not necessarily half, some more revealing than others and the demi-cup is designed better to display the cleavage but need not do so in the exaggerated manner of the push-up bra, almost all of which use a kind of demi-cup.   Many demi-cup bras don't use the push-up engineering though they typically include most of the familiar components (padding, underwires etc).  A variation of the demi style is also inherent to the “plunge bra”, designed to accommodate garments with a low cut but why the industry settled on demi-cup rather than semi-cup isn't known and the term isn't universal, some manufacturers preferring "half cup".  Still, it's definitely all about the cup and to be regarded as a demi bra, it should be constructed with partial cups which cover between 50-75% of the breast and coverage should be the same all across the bra (similar to a balconette bra) as opposed to Plunge or T-Shirt bras where there's a slight dip in the middle.  Additionally, most demis use an underwire in a slightly wider than usual U-shape, evenly arched.

Demi- is used suggest something of less than full-size or status although it doesn’t of necessity imply something inferior.  In English, it’s the rarest of the three forms and, in English, was first used in heraldry, where things like demi-angels, demi-lions, demi-horses were applied to escutcheons.  It also held sway in certain niches such as the military (demi-brigade) and fashion (demi-cap; demi-lustre; demi-worsted) and coach-building (demi-limousine).  Of late, it has absorbed the sense of “virtual” as well as “lesser” and is quirky too: A demigod, while certainly not quite the real thing can be applied with either negative or positive connotations.

1969 Ford Torino Talladega.

Although modest by comparison with Chrysler’s radial Daytona and Superbird, Ford’s aerodynamic enhancements to the Torino proved surprisingly effective.  Actually, so good was the Talladega that when the sleek-looking replacement was released, the racers found it was slower and kept their Talladegas in service as long as they were eligible.  Ford had produced enough of their Fairlane-based Torino Talladegas to run them on the NASCAR circuits but needed to sell five-hundred cars with their new BOSS 429 V8 engine to reach the homologation threshold.

A helpfully inserted quirk in the NASCAR rules allowed them to put the engine in the Mustang rather than the larger Torino which would actually be used for competition.  That was good because the BOSS 429 Mustang attracted great interest and Ford sold more than enough to comply, something few were confident of doing with the Torino.  Additionally, and again helpfully, any doubts about the eligibility of the new engine had been resolved when NASCAR nudged the displacement limit by a couple of cubes.  The capacity limit of 428 cubic inches (7014 cm³) had been imposed in 1963 after Ford, caught cheating using a specialized aerodynamic part called a Starlift roof, sent one of the now-banned cars, fitted with a 483 cubic inch (7.9 litre) engine, to the Bonneville salt flats and set a number of international speed records.  NASCAR was watching what had started out as a "stock car" racing series in which essentially amateur teams could on a good day compete with the professionals, turn into a place where to be competitive, what was required was a big-budget operation, supported by the factories making available exotic and expensive components which had no purpose except on a race track.  Knowing where that 483 would be heading, NASCAR cracked down.  There would be plenty of other squabbles about engines during the 1960s but by the time the BOSS 429 came along, all was forgiven, NASCAR raising the limit to  430 cubic inches (7046 cm³).

1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429.

That was also bad because the Boss 429 was a big lump designed to fit in the wide-bodied intermediates and such was the task to shoehorn it into the narrower Mustang that the job had to be out-sourced to a specialist contractor because inserting the labour-intensive programme into the highly-structured Ford production-lines would have been too disruptive.  Thus, cars were delivered to the contractor which also received the 429 engines in crates.  Destined originally to be fitted with the physically smaller 428 SCJ engines, it was no small task to make the 429 fit, the shock towers being moved outwards along with the upper and lower control arms and stiffer springs were fitted and, surprisingly, it actually worked out quite well.  Although the bulky heads made the 429 a wide piece of machinery, they were made of aluminum and the total package was barely heavier than the all-iron 428 and some even included a few magnesium components which were lighter still.  The changes made had the effect of moving the front wheels further apart and increasing their negative camber and this gave the Boss 429 the best handling and road manners of any big-block Mustang although, it was still a front-heavy thing and clumsy to drive at low speed.  Re-locating the battery to the boot helped weight-distribution a little but none of the changes were ever going to make it behave like a Lotus Elan.

1969 Ford Mustang Boss 429.

However, one implication of things being such a tight fit was that there wasn’t the space to fit a free-flowing exhaust system so in the Mustang it was never possible for the engine to breathe as deeply as it did in the big NASCAR stockers and knowing this, Ford made no attempt to configure the it for maximum output, the carburetor smaller than those used on the Boss 302 and Boss 351.  Nor were the internal components assembled in a specification consistently intended to maximize performance, some built (supposedly in error) with a valve train which limited engine speed and the project anyway was a homologation exercise designed to sell the requisite number of parts required to qualify them for competition although, despite the low production spread over only two years, there were three distinct variations.  The first few hundred (S-code) units used heavy connecting rods secured with ½ inch (13 mm) bolts whereas the rest of the 1969 run and most built in 1970 (T-code) were fitted with lighter pieces and ⅜ (9 mm) bolts and initially, the early T-code engines carried over the hydraulic lifters from the S-code but production soon switched to a solid lifters with a somewhat more lumpy camshaft, the magnesium valve covers at the same time replaced with units cast in aluminum.  Finally there was an edition (A-code) which appeared in the last few of those built in 1970 and it varied from the T-series specification only in in some changes to the plumbing associated with what was still a quite rudimentary anti-pollution system.  Whatever its variations, a Boss 429 Mustang was what it was.

The shotgun ports.

It was also what it was not.  Expectations were high and, on paper, not unreasonable because the notion of putting a genuine seven litre racing engine in something as (relatively) small as the Mustang did hint at something special but, with the strangled engine, although quick, it wasn’t a cataclysm on wheels and the opposition was quicker still.  One of the issues was the fundamental design of those exotic heads.  Nick-named shotgun because the intake and exhaust ports reminded many of the double-barrels of a 12-gauge (although each was large enough almost to swallow a tennis ball), they worked admirably in the Talladegas at high-speed where they were matched with a big carburetor and free-flowing exhaust system.  On the street however, the big shotgun ports rarely saw sustained high-speed running and their sheer size meant the fuel at low speed didn’t achieve the flow-rate necessary for the low-end response needed on the street or strip.

1969 Boss 429 on stand with open exhaust headers.

Prior to release there was talk of quarter-mile runs somewhere in the twelve second range but in reality, no stock Boss 429 ever went quicker than low fourteens, enough to put it in the upper echelon of the muscle car era but there were those who expected more.  More did come, as initially disillusioned engine builders began to understand what it responded to, it became for decades one of the dominant forces in drag-racing, the shotgun ports meaning it took to forced aspiration like few engines, twin-turbocharged Boss engines able to generate thousands of horsepower.

1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429.

So it was quite a legacy and the surviving Mustangs now sell for as much as US$250,000.  Although Ford was compelled to build only 500, 857-odd were sold in 1969 and 499 in 1970 so it’s a bit of an oddity, quite a rarity yet almost mass-produced compared with some of the limited production machines of the muscle car era and such is the allure that there are companies now producing reproductions of the famous heads, modified slightly to fit regular production blocks.  It’s never been known how much money Ford lost on each Mustang it sold but, fitted with the famous Holley Dominator 1150 CFM carburetor and open exhaust headers suited to an engine happiest running at full throttle, the BOSS 429 did its job on the circuits and the company seemed happy with the investment although its life as a flag-bearer would be short, motorsport soon to be neglected as a changing world and a onrush of legislation demanding compliance needing the resources the circuits soaked up.

The semi-hemi combustion chamber.

As well as being nick-named the shotgun, it was also called the semi-hemi.  The BOSS 429’s combustion chambers weren’t actually hemispherical but they tended towards the shape (and the ones used in the race cars sometimes were).  Although Ford apparently would have preferred to have them known as a "blue crescent", it didn't catch on and, there being no obvious word in use to describe what they looked like, they came to be known as semi-hemi.  Musicologists had already gone one better than Ford.  Noting that English had contrived to borrow three words from Antiquity in order to have three prefixes meaning “half”, they invented hemidemisemiquaver to describe a sixty-fourth of a note (ie a half of a half of a half of an eighth note), a coining from that year of semi-revolutions: 1848.